Dedicated to the Proposition that the Future Ain't What It Used to Be...

The world has arrived at an age of cheap complex devices of great reliability; and something is bound to come of it. Vannevar Bush, 1945

"I believe in transhumanism": once there are enough people who can truly say that, the human species will be on the threshold of a new kind of existence, as different from ours as ours is from that of Pekin man. It will at last be consciously fulfilling its real destiny. Julian Huxley, 1957

Wednesday, 05 March 2014

Not Our Finest Hour

I don't think anyone comes out of this looking good. The people who reacted so vigorously on Twitter on Saturday to the announcement, people who until a few minutes earlier, perhaps even hadn't heard of Ross, might feel now that they perhaps were a little hasty. Perhaps Ross isn't such a bad egg after all. Then again, he does have plenty of previous. Who knows what he might have said or done, even if the Hugos are not the National Comedy Awards? Well, exactly, might. The man's a pro. We'll give the audience what it wants or what he thinks it wants. There's the rub. But will anyone be retracting any tweets?

The thing is, given that there is no shortage of recent debacles over the MCing of the Hugos, the concom might have thought that the best approach was to find a safe pair of hands. As Dave pointed out to me this evening, the Hugos are actually pretty boring and the last thing you need is someone doing either an unfunny comedy turn or an or off-colour comedy turn for two hours. So, yes, mine's a lamb rogan josh with a peas pilau.

But this has been all over the place: the Evening Standard, the New Statesman.We're in a different world now. Ross has 3.65M followers on Twitter including lots of journos. So when a flap suddenly brews up with a big star, some people are going to think there's a story there. Especially, how gracelessly Ross took it. Yes, it was personal, but you've got to take your knocks. I suppose like the makers of the documentary series, people don't expect sf fans to be quite as shrill as they are. Maybe it's different in comics/media and there's a lot more automatic deference to the creatives with a few licensed jesters permitted to speak truth to the powerful. The way that Ross responded shows that he was the wrong choice all along, but I suppose it might have been that he was irritated to attack personally by a group of people he was doing a favour. Obviously, he gets a fee for the BCA. But I think he should have just it let it wash over him for a few days and then he see how he felt. Like me, he'd should have stepped aside from Twitter for a few hours.

And none of these stories are likely to terribly favourable either to fans or sf. Not all publicity is good publicity. I think the advice to future concoms is don't pick an MC with 3.65M followers. It might not end well. This isn't 1987. Then it would have taken weeks for the news to even reach people, although, of course, there could still be plenty of ill-feeling at the con itself. News travels faster now. We live in the future. We should get used to it.

Comments

Given some of the things said on Twitter I thought he actually kept his temper in check really. But the blame does lie with the Con Chairs.

They should have briefed Ross about the problems there had been and asked him to take that into account. When they made the announcement they should have had a press pack ready to go rather than assuming people knew him.

They should have had a formal statement ready to go thanking Farah Mendleson for her service, accepting her reasons for resigning but outlining why they felt they had to stick with Ross.

They should have done all those things and if they had we'd have been looking at a fannish shitstorm but not a media one involving my family asking why I'm friends with weirdos.

J.G. Ballard: The Atrocity Exhibition: Annotated (Flamingo Modern Classics)Described by Zadie Smith in her recent (and, I think, seminal) article in the "New York Review" as "possibly the greatest British avant-garde novel". I have to admit that I find Ballard annotations to each section much more interesting than the actual pieces themselves, which probably says more about me (is there a word to describe people who prefer the critical apparatus of a thing to the thing itself - other than, of course, "pretentious"?) than is does about Ballard or TAE. But there is, I think, something here. One could imagine an undated version in which almost nothing had to be changed - almost all of the celebrities the text is fixated on are still icons forty years later, which, as Ballard indicates, probably tells us something about the 1960s. It's amusing that Ballard (writing, I suppose, in the late 1980s) is rather dismissive of Ralph Nader, well-known in the 1960s for "Unsafe at Any Speed"; if only he had known that it would be Nader or rather the fuckwits (I think that is the technical term) who voted for him in 2000 who would condemn us to eight years of George W. Bush. There's probably a story in that. (***)

Umberto Eco: The Name of the RoseThis is not the edition I am reading (which is the early Picador paperback), but it is the edition with the David Lodge introduction, which I am currently reading in Lodge's collection "The Year of Henry James", which made it clear to me that here was a book I had to prioritise immediately. (*****)

Stella Gibbons: Cold Comfort Farm (Penguin Modern Classics)I think this this should really be three and a half stars. I know, I know. OK, OK. Coming off the fence then three stars. The thing is that it is very clever and witty and funny, but it is also rather one note (leaving aside the first couple of chapters) and it would work better as a 60-page novella. After a few chapters, you get the shtick and after that it is just pretty much more of the same. Of course, it doesn't help now that Gibbons's explicit models (Mary Webb, Sheila Kaye-Smith - see http://segalbooks.blogspot.com/2008/07/further-beyond-woodshed.html) are pretty much forgotten and that D.H. Lawrence's star is no longer in the ascendant. (***)

John Rolfe and Peter Troob: Monkey Business: Swinging Through the Wall Street JungleNot as well-written as Michael Lewis's "Liar's Poker" or as funny as Martin Kihn's "House of Lies" and now rather dated (there is one mention of the internet and none of email; the mid-1990s were still the days of voicemail), nevertheless this book has the unmistakable ring of veracity to it. I may never have been an i-banker, but I was a management consultant and I can believe that everything they report here is true. (***)

Marc Blake: How to Be a Sitcom Writer: Secrets from the InsideVery short and pretty slight. Discusses the sit more than the com (I suppose this is discussed in Blake's "How to Be a Comedy Writer: Secrets from the Inside" - or not: see the Amazon review). Without the jokes, a sitcom, is just a sit, or rather it isn't as people aren't likely to carry on watching. (**)

Evelyn Waugh: The Complete Short StoriesDemonstrates that Waugh's strengths were very much at novel length (but I haven't got to the novellas yet) - each new set of dissolute aristos and upper middle class twits comes along so quickly that my class hackles were raised - but we can turn a sentence. (****)

Belle de Jour: The Intimate Adventures Of A London Call Girl (tv tie-in)Champion/Orlowski cashing in. Not very closely related to the risible tv series. For instance, Piper doesn't come from the North of England (unlike, say, Sarah Champion), always uses black cabs and men's deodorants. I suspect that the writers of the tv series have been carrying out secondary research as well as toning down the material in the programme to fit with ITV2 Middle Britain-"Daily Mail"-thinking demographic. (**)

Jorge Luis Borges: Antologia de La Literatura FantasticaNo, I haven't learnt Spanish (ought I?), but this was the only picture of the cover of the book that I could come across (quickly) and in odd way it is more authentic as it the cover of the Spanish language version of the classic anthology. (*****)

Richard Dawkins: The God DelusionEasy to see why this irks both the Godbotherers and the less strident atheists and agnostics in almost equal measure. But Dawkins isn't trying to write a dispassionate enquiry into the methaphysical credibility of the thesistic proposition. He is writing a polemical counterblast to the theistic propaganda a hundred volumes of which can be found in any bookshop. He also has the advantage of being *right* (as well as being a wonderful stylist). It is cheering that this is the current non-fiction bestseller. It is also cheering that this is merely the most popular of a number of atheistic polemics that appeared recently. Splendid stuff. (****)

Matthew Sweet: Shepperton Babylon: The Lost Worlds of British CinemaFor some reason, the cover shown at Amazon is different from the one on my copy (mine has Alec Guinness from "The Man in the White Coat"). The Weasel was right: this book does have something interesting or unexpected on practically every page. The chapters on the pre-WWII years and particularly the 1920s silent era are the most fascinating as they describe a truly lost world (but one that reflects and refracts our own time - see Frederick Lewis Allen's "Only Yesterday" (1931) for the an instant history of US in 1920s and I must now read Robert Graves's and Alan Hodges's "The Long Weekend: a Social History of Britain, 1918-1939" (1940) - for illuminating contemporary takes on those times) and one that does invoke many suggestions for alternative universes. The book suffers from the fact that it's not actually that long and the history of British cinema is not actually that small, so even though large areas are completely neglected (science fiction, unsurprisingly), there is still a sense of a book told at a gallop. Sweet would have been better to have written two books one for pre-WWII and one for post. Another irritating habit of Sweet's is to give a list of films illustrating some theme or the work of a particular actor or director, but not to do so in chronological order. Yes, the most respresntative example might have come first, but that's the way it was, it can't (typically) be turned into the pay-off of the section. It's also not clear how much Sweet really likes British cinema. But he does achieve one thing. I'd love to see some of those British silent epic and so I shall hasten to the Curzon and the NFT to see when they
might be showing them. (****)

Humphrey Carpenter: The Angry Young Men: A Literary Comedy of the 1950sThis a fun read, but a very slight one. Which sums Carpenter. He was a pleasant writer, but original or deep research was never his forte. OK, he was a busy man, so why should he have bothered when there was all that secondary literature to be... mined?
But the Angries were an interesting (if heterogeneous) bunch. And, yes, I wish I was as talented as Kingsley Amis. I remember reading "Lucky Jim" in about 1984. It bowled me over, so I can only imagine the impact with its freshness and liveliness. I can only imagine the impact it must have had in 1954.
There is a great deal of interesting material here. But like all these books, it needs to be at least twice as long (there are many writers from Angry-influenced writers from a very slightly later period such as Stan Barstow and David Storey or, for that matter, B.S. Johnson, who are not even mentioned). Carpenter sees the Angries as a passing show and that was true to a certain extent, but the fact is that 50 years later we are still talking about them. They must have done something right. They were news that has stayed news. (***)

Neal Stephenson: The System of the WorldOnly just started this. And given that I'm doing by MBA, I've no idea when I'll finish. But it'll be there besides my bed to remind me of freer days to come. (***)

Elizabeth Benedict: The Joy of Writing SexEntertaining and informative guide to writing about sex. Pity it wasn't longer. It's a huge area (or, rather, areas) and Benedict does pass through rather quickly at times. But then we can always use our imagination if we want more. (****)

Chris Turner: Planet Simpson: How a Cartoon Masterpiece Documented an Era and Defined a GenerationIs "The Simpsons" the greatest TV show of all time? Well, if it isn't what is? Certainly, this book makes a convincing case for the priority of America's First Family. (Homer for President. Face it, he couldn't be worse.) Extremely readable, it is sliping down like an oyster. I'm up to page 100 already and I should be reading MBA books. My reasoon for only giving this book 4 stars is that not only does it not have an index, unforgiveable in itself, it doesn't even have a table of contents! Shame on you, Ebury Press. I can only hope these omissions are the mass market paperpack. (****)

James Gleick: Isaac NewtonJames Gleick is probably the best science writer out there. Apparently, this book contains mistakes. But until I have the time to read Richard S. Westfall's monumental biography of Newton, "Never at Rest", this will more than do as an introduction to Newton's life and thought. Good preparation for "The System of the World", Volume III of "The Baroque Cycle" due any week now. (****)

Jonathan Coe: Like a Fiery Elephant: The Story of B.S. JohnsonA biography of one of The Razor's favourite writers by another of the The Razor's favourite writers? What's not to like? Not much. I really like Coe's chatty style (I suspect he would be an interesting chap to have a curry with). Johnson was a fascinating character and he must have been quite something to come across in real life. Sure, Coe never really gets under Johnson's skin, but that's true of almost all biographies. Despite being four years late, I suspect this book was written in a hurry (we know that it was written at the same time as "the Closed Circle, Coe's eagerly awaited completion of the tryptych he began with "The Rotters Club"). There are a number of stylish repetitions that jump out at you and also a number of mistakes and typos. It could have benefited from going through the word processor one more time *and* a good copy-edit. But this is a zippy, zingy read about one of Britain's most interesting post-War writers. Johnson had incredible, bombastic self-belief (a cover for his lifelong suicidal depression), something the Razor does not. But if Johnson could do it, maybe he can too. (****)

Adam Roberts: Salt (Gollancz SF S.)Reminded me of "The Sparrow", but in a good way. Roberts's science is a bit dodgy at times, but if he dismissed all sf with dodgy science, there wouldn't be all that much left and at least he never egregiously insults the intelligence of the reader. I liked the descriptions of the anarchist and statist societies. Reminded me of "The Dispossessed", but in a good way. As was waisely said, at the Jomsborg Thing, this is a very British novel. And all the better for that. (***)

Michael Palin: Mind the GapA collection of photographs of the tube taken at or near the stations at the ends of the various lines. Just wonderful. There is something incredibly *homely* about this book, perhaps because the pictures are most of suburban stations and the captions make one realise that Mr James is a man just like you who likes to hear the hear the football results of "Grandstand" after a crisp Autumn Saturday spent pottering about the tube. There is the thrill of the recognition of the familar and so often ignored here. (*****)

Alastair Reynolds: Revelation Space (Gollancz SF S.)Started this last night. Reynolds is the other tutor on my Arvon course at the end of August. Whereas I've read all of Christopher Priest's work, I doubrt I'll get through much more of Reynolds as this given that all of his books are long and all of them st in the same universe. But this is *hard* sf, it got good reviews and it should be right up my street. I hope so. (****)

Andrew Collins: Where Did It All Go Right?: Growing Up Normal In the 70sCollins grew up in suburban, provinicial Northampton. I grew up in suburban, provincial Preston. Emphaisis on the provinicial. There's a great of commonality between our lives. There are two major differences. Firstly, Colins self-consciously strived to be popular and cool and he succeded. Secondly, the all-pervasive influence of the Roman Catholic Church was absent from his life. It makes a difference. I couldn't write a book subtitled "Growing Up Normal in the 70s".
This is not a short book and the truth is that Collins's childhood is really that interesting after a while. Also, he never tells us why he didn't go to the Swaperama when Cheggers came to town nor exactly what it was that his brother, who did attend the event, was so disillusioned by. The Razor demands to know. (***)

Peter Robinson: Snapshots from Hell: Making of an MBAA slight read, but a quick one (I only bought it on Friday!). I don't think Imperial will be very much like Stanford (the sun won't shine and there won't be a hot tub), but it does provide a taste of what b-school might be like, althoughI am a non-poet! As some reviewers have pointed out, Robinson's experience is very non-typical. Had he not had the White House experience, he'd never have got personal interview with Maxwell, Jobs and Murdoch. He also never tells us what his GMAT was. Maybe it wasn't so important in the 80s. He's also very Reagenite, but no mention of the S&L scandals. Strange that. Still, worth a read as there aren't many books on b-school experiences. (****)

Neal Stephenson: The ConfusionVolume II of the Baroque Cycle. This book has it all: adventure, romance, philosophical discussions. What more could you ask for? Deeply, deeply wonderful. (*****)

Karl Sabbagh: Dr Riemann's ZerosJust started this last night. Given the importance of the Riemann hypothesis - and given the difficulty of explaining just what the heck it is all about - I felt it was behoven on me to find out more about it. (****)

Alan Ayckbourn: The Crafty Art of PlaymakingOnly half the book is about playwriting; the other half is on directing. This is a slight book, but it's always hearing the advice of one of the true master's of the modern stage. (****)